Well, the end of the year came early in 2014, because this is already going down. From the TechCrunch article “Google+ is Walking Dead”:

What we’re hearing from multiple sources is that Google+ will no longer be considered a product, but a platform — essentially ending its competition with other social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

….

As part of these staff changes, the Google Hangouts team will be moving to the Android team, and it’s likely that the photos team will follow, these people said. Basically, talent will be shifting away from the Google+ kingdom and towards Android as a platform, we’re hearing.

Why do this? It’s not because Google lost to Facebook. It’s that Google, via Android, has already won. Facebook is an app for sharing pictures and news stories. For a while it was a contender to own the thing that really mattered — your identity management architecture and your lifestream. But guess where IM and lifestream functions live now:

Google understands that, which is why it’s moved so much of its Google+ team into building former mega-site features into the OS. Microsoft understands that, which is why it shipped the half-baked, but theoretically well-founded, Windows 8. Apple has probably known this a while which is why it just waited.

If we want to change the future of technology, that’s where we have to be. I don’t quite know what that means yet. But it’s time to start talking about it, and stop waging the battles that don’t matter anymore.

It’s funny, as you know I didn’t own a smartphone until about a year ago — like you I was firing up the burner phone. Getting the phone made me realize that the point wasn’t mobile, it was hybrid apps — and that the stuff I’d already been seeing on Xbox and in Windows 8 was all part of a grander pattern — something along what Zittrain had been saying, but less off a “we’ve lost this” and more of a general, value-neutral shift.

So serious answer to a half-joking question, but it’s not really about whether you are using a phone — this will be your laptop too in short order. And without a separation of concerns, it could really suck, but with a separations of concerns it could actually be better than what we have.

I’d be interested to know more — I’m less familiar with Apple than PC/Android. But I thought they had largely adopted Android’s notifications panel & share-to functions? I’ll admit that on the desktop OS front they seem surprisingly far behind…

I won’t tell you anything new, but it’s just the same with everything in life.
You’d think history teaches us anything, but that’s so rare.
Feel free to disagree but the world changes rapidly, and we have no control whatsoever over it.
For instance, imagine Barack had any balls to put Vladimir to his place, but it seems like it’s not happening, welcome WW3.
Great post, thanks!
Sarah http://phyto-renew350i.com/

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About Me

Among other things, I run the Digital Polarization Initiative, an cross-institutional initiative to improve civic discourse by developing web literacy skills in college undergraduates. Have a class that wants to join? Contact me at michael.caulfield at wsu.edu.